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Human bodies can become acclimatized, or used to, some levels of cold and heat.
If you visit someplace that’s hotter or more humid than you’re used to, you’ll feel uncomfortable at first. But after a week or so, your body will adjust. You’ll start to sweat more, and your temperature won’t rise as much when you exercise. Our bodies’ ability to adapt is one of the main reasons human beings can live in so many different climates.
Question:
Which animal can survive in any climate?
Answer:
You – and all humans. Our bodies react in certain ways (like shivering) to withstand the cold and in other ways (like sweating) to withstand the heat. But our main survival advantage is our brain. We use it to invent things that help us stay comfortable when it gets too hot or cold and too wet or dry – like air conditioners and fleece jackets.
Home in Virginia
Home in Malaysia
▲ Which of these houses is better designed? That depends on where you live. The house on the left is fine for most people living in the U.S., but the one on the right better serves people in a hot climate with heavy rains. With few walls inside, cool breezes can blow through, and its slanted, overhanging roof shields it from sunlight and rain. Stilts keep it away from any floodwaters.
▲ People who have evolved to live in hot climates are often tall and thin. Their arms and legs are often longer than those of people who have adapted to live in cold climates. The Maasai people, who live near the equator in East Africa, have thin bodies and long limbs, which let them shed heat quickly.
▲ These Inuit children’s parkas, leggings, and mukluks (boots) help to keep them warm. The clothing makes good use of an animal’s insulating fur. Turning the animal skin inside out makes it even better at trapping heat.
▲ Long-sleeved robes protect this Saudi Arabian boy from the blazing desert sunlight. Loose robes allow air to circulate. Light colors reflect more of the sun’s light and therefore absorb less of the sun’s heating rays than dark colors do.
◀ Early American houses were really chilly on winter nights. No furnaces, no central heating, and no electric blankets! How did they take the chill off a cold bed? Some people filled a bed warmer like this one with hot coals from the kitchen fire. By holding the end of the pole, they could slip the bed warmer under the covers and move it around. Then they’d pull it out and hop into a nice toasty bed.
▲ Chungungo, Chile, gets hardly any rain. This tiny seaside village has plenty of clouds, but they almost always roll past, heading toward a nearby mountain. Chungungo is so dry that for years the only way residents could get water was to have it trucked in, which was very expensive. But now the villagers get their water directly from the clouds, using the mountain and huge plastic nets. The clouds blanket the mountain in mist. As the mist blows through the finely meshed nets, tiny water droplets in the air cling to the nets. The water droplets drip into containers on the ground. The collected water runs through hoses down to the village.
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Try This!
If you’ve ever wondered why you sweat when you’re hot, do this experiment to find out for yourself. Dip one hand in lukewarm water, wave both of your hands in the air, and then decide which hand feels cooler. As the water evaporates, it absorbs heat energy from your skin – which helps to make you feel cooler. Sweating works the same way. Waving your hand in the air speeds up evaporation, cooling you faster. A summer breeze can do the same thing.
